I mean we know Intel wouldn’t certify the ThunderboltEX card but that kind of leave the whole thing up in the air. Were the earlier motherboards released with optional Thunderbolt support advertising on the packaging or manual? If so that could puts Asus in a bad legal situation given their inability to deliver the product.

Does the Zalman CNPS12X Cooler block out the 1st RAM position on this board? It looks like you have the RAM sticks in the blue slots (positions 2 & 4 starting from the CPU and counting away from the CPU) vs. the black slots.